Not That Fragile
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: Alex gets shot, and Hank worries about her. Part of my Hank/Alex collection.


As usual, this hasn't been proof-read, so please let me know if you spot any errors!

Prompt number 17: Blood

* * *

Blood.

There was so much blood.

It gushed from the wound on Alex's side.

Shot by a fleeing alien with a gun, of all things. The alien could control plants, but he shot at them with a gun.

Her breath came in difficult rasps. Hank could also tell that it was getting harder and harder for Alex to focus on him. "Alex, come on. You're going to be okay. The med team is on their way."

He clasped her hand tightly, afraid to let go. Tears clouded his vision, but he didn't want to let go of her hand to brush them away. So he just let them stream down his face. They dripped off from his jaw and onto her face.

"Are… are you crying?" she rasped out.

"I am," Hank agreed. He found that he couldn't lie to her, even now.

"J'onn," she whispered just as the medical team came rushing up. One of the medics pulled Hank away gently as the others got to work on stabilizing Alex's wound.

Within a minute, they'd put some gauze over the wound, and put her onto a stretcher. The helicopter was only just a few feet away. Two men carried Alex over to it, while the others ran after. Hank wanted to ride along with them, but he knew that he'd only just get in the way. He'd fly back to the DEO and meet them there.

* * *

"SHE IS MY WIFE, AND I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW HOW SHE IS!" Hank roared at the doctor who refused to tell him anything about Alex's condition. In the back of his mind, he knew that it wasn't the doctor's fault, but he was blind with rage and fear over losing her.

"Hank! HANK!" Kara called out as she came rushing into the medical wing of the DEO. He was distracted from the doctor long enough for the doctor to slip away as fast as he could. "I got here as fast as I could. How is she?"

"I don't know," Hank whispered as he sunk down into the hard, plastic waiting chair that he'd been sitting on for the past hour and a half. "They won't tell me anything."

Silently, Kara sat next to him. He was grateful for her presence. She didn't want for her sister to die, either.

* * *

Finally, after about nine hours, a doctor wearing bloody scrubs came out. Hank's heart started to hammer in his chest, fearing for the worst. Beside him, Kara swallowed hard.

"She's been stabilized, but we need to keep a very close eye on her," the doctor said. "She's lot a lot of blood, and she crashed once on the table.

Hank clasped his hands together and sent a silent thank you to whoever was watching. Alex was alive, and that's all that mattered.

"Can we see her?" Kara asked before Hank had a chance to.

"She's unconscious right now, but you-" He gave Hank a pointed look. "May sit with her for a few minutes. But no more." They tended to give spouses priority over siblings.

Hank followed the doctor on wooden legs into the section of the medical wing with the rooms for the recovering patients. All of the rooms were exactly the same, and each one was filled with the same amount of dread and despair.

Too many times, Hank had sat by Alex's bedside as she recovered from some horrible ordeal. She was being kept under sedation, but the fact that she wasn't being kept in a medically induced coma this time seemed like a good thing to Hank.

"Five minutes," the doctor said pointedly before he left Hank alone in Alex's room.

Hank sunk down onto the visitor's chair. He wanted to take her hand, but there were a lot of tubes and devices attached to her hand, and he was afraid to dislodge any of them.

Instead, he clasped his hands in front of him and started to pray. Although she was alive, things were still up in the air. The doctors had done the best that they could, but sometimes, people still died anyway.

When the doctor came to tell him that his five minutes were up, Hank swept out from the wing to where Kara was. "We have work to do, Supergirl. Alex would want for us to catch that alien."

She nodded, beyond ready to not have to think about Alex for a little while as they went after the alien.

* * *

Alex woke up two days later, and Hank was the first thing she saw.

"Hey," she croaked out, her throat dry from disuse.

"Hey," he whispered, and gently stroked her cheek. "How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Call the doctor?"

"Water," she said.

"I'll be right back," he said, and hurried from the room. The doctor gave him a cup of ice chips, which Hank fed slowly to Alex. When she'd finished half of the cup, she closed her eyes, as if completely exhausted by the simple process of sucking on small bits of ice.

"I suppose that Kara gave me those flowers," she finally said.

"She did," Hank agreed.

"And you?' she asked as she looked over to him without moving her head. "Where's my 'got shot in the line of duty' punch card?"

Hank could only just stare at her, agape. She'd been shot, but now she was asking about their stupid punch card joke? She started to laugh, but her laughter quickly turned into wet coughs.

"Ow, it hurts too much to laugh," she complained. "Come on, J'onn. Don't look at me like that."

"I hate how you're the one who always ends up in here," he whispered as he took her hand. He was careful not to jostle the tubes and devices that she was hooked up to, and he kissed her wrist gently. "It should be me lying in the hospital bed, not you. If I'd been a second faster-"

"Then you might be dead," Alex said without humor. "I'm alive. I can't say that I'm okay, but I'll get there. J'onn, you can't keep beating yourself up over me getting injured. It's a part of the job. And I realize that I could get injured, and yes, even die. But I can't let that stop me from getting out there to protect the public. And you know that just as well as I do."

"Yes, but it doesn't stop me from being afraid. I thought that I was going to lose you."

Alex reached out and cupped his face in her hand. He nuzzled the palm of her hand and let his eyes slid closed. "I know that I'm not as tough as you are, J'onn, but us humans? We're not that fragile, either."

* * *

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